Why can't millennials find jobs?

[Bauce]

I think lazy people who can't be bothered to show up on time or wear proper attire make shit employees. I also think people who have zero flexibility aren't putting themselves in a good position to get hired.

I also know millennials who are none of those things, willing to take any job as long as it's a foot in the door to the industry they wanna work in, and simply can't get an interview.

I have a policy of not going into details about my work when in chatting online, that can only lead to bad things. But I will say that as a millennial I had to do shit out of college that I was only able to do because of the good financial position my parents put me in, so I could make next to nothing while proving I was worth investing in. Most people my age can't do that when they just got to the real world and have a ton of student debt. And they can't get a chance because of this "lol millennials suck" mentality.

[Indy]

I think it probably has everything to do with our stumbling economy but that said, believe it or not, I have heard carping about millenials and their "attitude" and that's why some people won't hire them.

Generalization, I know, but I have heard this (in real life, not online).

[dontworrybehappy]

I wonder how boomers will feel about refusing to put up with millennial "attitude" when they need their social security check but the tax base that's supposed to foot the bill is a generation of highly educated waiters and store clerks.

[Indy]

True!

[The Dharma Bum]

Millennials should just pretend to have a professional appearance and work ethic until they are hired. Then they they can let that shit go, just like all the generations that came before them did.

[Medius]

Quite a lot of it has to do with the economic downturn and the fact that companies are hiring into consolidated positions, which require more skill and experience to fill.

It also really depends on the industry. If you want to be an application developer, you'll find a job, but you'll take an intro position and won't be making six figures. If you want to be a game developer, you'll be in QA making next to nothing for a few years. I mention these because it is a shift from the 90's, where a programmer would walk out of college into a high paying job, with probably a signing bonus (if you were good). Even those who weren't that good would find a higher paying job. Now, you have to get the experience as the whole industry has become very corporate.

[jimmyz]

Why? because I handed mine a 2 year old Nissan, free room and board, and every luxury she needed in the hopes she would have a great launching pad. The rocket failed at launch and sits idle. Were are holding at T-minus 17 months for a refueling and another launch attempt. Engineers are still trying to identify the malfunction.

[The Comrade]

i live in a job-poor area so my situation is worse in general than the rest of the country but most places here leave jobs open for months/years without filling them, all the time advertising for them, and never giving anyone a chance at even an interview because no one meets whatever outlandish qualifications they have set for a minimum wage job.

it's a bit disingenuous to solely blame it on the potential workforce. in my experience a lot of places are understaffed because they choose to be, whether they think they're choosing it or not.

[dontworrybehappy]

A lot of truth in all of these posts.

I'm seeking out employment right now, out of aviation and into a different industry, anything except health care. I was reading some of the requirements. One set of job requirements was that they must pass a background check (that alone excludes 25% of the adult population), must pass a drug screen (another good chunk of adults excluded here) must be willing to travel and must be willing to relocate......all of this for a 9 dollar an hour PART TIME receptionist at a damn dental clinic that has 2 locations. C'mon people. When the list of requirements fills a page on a computer screen and the pay is single digits per hour, you have to laugh.

I think some companies don't want to fill these positions, but they advertise them for whatever damn reason they want. I've applied to positions I am WAY WAY over qualified for just to see if I got a call, nothing. That's another problem I'm realizing with time. College grads are overqualified for many bottom feeder jobs, but underqualfied for anything higher. Wow, what a position to be dumped into right out of college.

People say that this new generation of college grads aren't willing to take bottom feeder jobs. Well, why should they? They went to college, worked hard and graduated so they would NOT have to start at the bottom. The sad part is, their high school buddies who didn't go to college have a 4 year head start on them in the workforce and will make more money than them for decades after they graduate from college. Meanwhile, the college grads are always trying to catch up. I discovered this when I graduated from college and was pumping jet fuel at an airport for 6 bucks an hour and a guy I graduated high school with who went straight into the workforce was making 16 an hour in construction. It took me over a decade to make 16 an hour. And I now have 2 college degrees. I found out that second college degree hurts me more than it helps me as it makes me overqualified for even more jobs I could be doing.

[The Dude]

It's a bullshit excuse by companies. They're saying this for PR reasons.

If there's a lack of "soft skills" then why are there less than 4 million job openings, still near all-time lows, to begin with? There should be 10 million job openings and then we'd have a real gap between skills but at 4 million, we're just looking at mostly turnovers.

Companies aren't hiring because Demand is still very weak. When Demand picks up, they will hire. All this other stuff is fluff. Millenials are no more lazy and whatnot than any other generation. They're just being scapegoated.